We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms turnin' every good thing to rust.

I understand the appeal of atheism. There are a few layers, I think. There is the outward that says “There is so much cruelty and pain in the world that no god that is even remotely good would allow it.” Free will is difficult to make sense of sometimes, I think, because there is so much suffering and horrible stuff in the world that it seems like the right thing for God to do would be to stop anyone from hurting anyone ever; but, there is free will, and the same reason that someone can decide to be an atheist is why someone else can decide to commit genocide. But it is also the thing that allows someone to go and try to fix something or stand on the sidelines and complain about God giving free will to everyone and not just the nice people. But I get it- I often wonder how God can allow things to happen, why he lets anyone ever suffer. I can’t give a definitive answer, but I know that miracles wouldn’t be miracles if God did them all the time for everyone and I also know that God loves that suffering person more than any human being has ever loved another human being. Humanity differs from all other creatures in its ability to differentiate between right and wrong and humanity is essentially selfish and evil. My best way of explaining is that the whole of humanity is fucked up. I want to use that word because it is the best descriptive of what I’m trying to say. All is bad and God creates any and all good that exists. So that’s the more moral aspect of atheism: that the world is so bad that no one good could have created it.

The second piece I believe is that they simply don’t want anyone telling them what to do. I mean, I totally get that. They don’t want someone saying you can’t have sex until you’re married and you can’t steal and you can’t kill and you can’t do drugs. There are times when I’ve wanted to do all of these things. But I think that God only tells us not to do things that can lead us to pain and suffering, either for us or anyone else. He doesn’t tell us not to do something because it’s bad and you’ll deserve to go to hell and he doesn’t want you to and he’ll get you in trouble; it’s because it can destroy you and separate you from God, your loving father and creator, and even though I sin regularly, I try not to, not because I fear that God will lay down his wrath upon me, but because I think he knows what he’s talking about.

Now, the final appeal of Atheism is that it’s the badass thing to do. We’ve come to a point in history, especially in first world countries where all religions are allowed, where we can be our own gods. We don’t need God because we have money and food and the internet and little consequences. And not only can we be our own gods, but Christians keep trying to stop me from doing what I want and now they’re the bad guys. The church is now the Empire, not the Rebellion, and no one wants to be with the Empire. No one wants to side with the oppressors. In other cultures where Christianity is illegal, it is so much more sincere and passionate and… well, badass. When someone says “do you know about Jesus? He died so you wouldn’t go to hell,” people don’t roll their eyes, they widen them. They meet in secret and have deep and incredible relationships with their savior, because they can’t be their own gods. See, once the early church started up and the Holy Spirit lived in different people all across the world and once Christians became the norm instead of the oppressed, Satan wasn’t worried at all. He had something much worse up his sleeve, because even when no one threatens to kill you for your faith and you aren’t forced to worship in secret, something happens in culture that extinguishes the flame in the hearts of believers so much quicker. Instead of being illegal, Jesus became uncool.

Almost no one in these oppressed countries decides that there is no God because their life is hard. They see how real God is because of it. Why do we lose faith so easily and Christians whose lives are threatened never waver? Why do first world people like us believe there is no God because of things that happen in these other places when the people there never doubt and continue to worship God through the suffering all around them?